Greg Molyneux Photography

Tag: hdr

Run Out the Tide
Run Out the Tide — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Friday evening, about 20 minutes before I made this, some primetime golden hour light was pouring over the salt marsh along Great Bay Boulevard. Better yet, the clouds were decent with the tide dead low and dead calm. All signs point to decent photo making when these conditions are met.
Compositionally my goal was to key off the remnant bulkheads—the roughly 1 foot in diameter stumps of wood you see aligned at an angle about the foreground—while conveying the extent of the dead low tide. To do this I kept my tripod higher than usual, putting the camera body about 5 feet off the ground, giving me enough angle on the marsh. More often than not I tend to get low and close when shooting wide angle—this makes closer objects appear more dramatic (re: large), but limits your ability to push the viewers eye depth further out toward the horizon. In other words, if I was crunched down here as usual, the tidal exposed marsh and the still water to its right would appear as much thinner strips. However, the bulkheads would be given much more visual weight. These are the kinds of decisions you have to make when you approach a scene. What am I trying to convey? And then, perhaps more importantly, what concessions do I have to make to achieve said conveyance? This is where I cannot advocate trail and error experimentation enough in an era of digital.
But it’s not all faeries and roses here. Due to the extreme angle I placed the sun—setting it to the outer sixth of the frame—chromatic aberration and lens flare marks the horizon from right to left in several spots. While I’m not sure if it’s a bad thing, I’m fairly certain it’s not a good thing. Ultimately I will leave this up to the subjectivity of the viewer. At the very least I should concede this effect was not intentional.
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March 13, 2016
Machinations of a Pastel Sky
Machinations of a Pastel Sky — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
For southeast New Jersey peeps a vantage to the north and east had it going on at sunset last night. Bailing on the traditional west by southwest exposure at sundown—which had nothing doing but clear skies—I did a 180 and posted up on the north side of Dock Road. A whole 20 foot walk from my usual spot. Whew! From there I let nature do the work. Admittedly I had a bit of trouble centering on the turning waterway while keep some rouge elements of the guardrail out of the foreground. With a little fiddling of tripod height adjustments I made it work. After that it was all just pushing buttons.
Heading into yesterday’s shoot on what was 4 March, I had been in a bit of a dry spell. I hadn’t been out doing the photo thing since 16 February, when coincidentally another striking east facing sunset took shape. Landscape photography is full of peaks and valleys; hot streaks and dry spells. When you’re at the mercy of weather, timing, and real life responsibilities, opportunities to shoot come and go. As tedious as it may become at the tail end of an extended hiatus, the reward of a steady supply of great light makes the wait bearable. If nothing else photography is a lesson in control—insofar as we ain’t gonna have it.
In other photography news: I picked up a long overdue 35mm lens yesterday. Fifth Prime I’m calling it as it joins my 14mm, 40mm, 50mm, and 100mm as the fifth prime lens in my bag. I’m excited to see what new opportunities this long coveted piece of glass affords me. I’m even thinking of dabbling in some people photography with this at my side—it will be interesting to see if this actually materializes.
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March 5, 2016
Worse for Wear
Worse for Wear — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Eastern facing sunsets some days sing supreme—and while yesterday’s western exposure was a fast moving fiery red, it was to the pastel east that I focused my gaze. With the tide well up access to Barnegat Bay Beach was out of the question, eliminating any hope I had of working the wave runner jetty into my frame. Scanning for alternatives this derelict bulkhead—seemingly none too old but certainly in disrepair—thrust up its hand, eagerly volunteering as a workable foreground. The missing boards and rusted nails made a suitable fallback, and as I was dialing in the frame the grain pattern on the support poles had me mesmerized. The pole to the right in particular with its almost camouflage pattern array. A smattering of seagrass even found itself snagged upon the remnant nails. There’s just a ton of neat little things going on in there if you stop to take a closer look.
The strength of this photograph is all about balance. Composed of a largely symmetrical foreground squared up perpendicular to the bay and horizon. To the sky there’s a high pastel cloud deck, emblazoned pink that’s largely being blocked out by the fast moving low-level cumulus clouds that came racing overhead from west to east. For about 2 minutes they colored up just enough with a touch of red upon their underbelly. I’m torn as to whether these clouds were a welcome addition to my frame, or if they’re more accurately described as an ill-timed guest. They certainly bring some drama in the form of shape and contrast, but at the same time they blocked out what would have been a potent light show at the higher cloud levels to the east. For a time there were hints we’d replicate the eastern sunset from The Great Gig in the Sky, but in the end the timing wasn’t quite right. Embrace the chaos thusly.
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February 17, 2016
Where do we go from here?
Where do we go from here? — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Tucked in among the lifeless grasses, cloistered from the outside world though hardly sheltered from its inhospitable cold, I made my stand—kneeling. With an icy tripod widened and set to its lowest setting, I was low and I was close to a wee bit of opening—revealing a low level glimpse out to the frozen lake of Stafford Forge. With the sunset sky failing to produce much drama I fell back to making the most of the scene I was given; and it’s a shot I’ve made before. Sometimes you’ve just got to work with what you’ve got.
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February 14, 2016
On Moments of Stillness and Reflection
On Moments of Stillness and Reflection — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Life happens. Good, bad, or indifferent life happens most when we least expect. The random acts of chaos that lay waste to any and all attempts at preparation and control. Casting aside sudden change’s immediate injection of drama—positive or otherwise—the dust settles to reveal opportunities for growth, change, and renewal. Yet when the certainty of impermanence becomes all too real it can become a bit tough to remember that advice in the heat of the moment.
How we deal with the uncontrolled happenstance of life is a central part of the human experience. How we maintain perspective and sensibility in the face of upheaval works to keep us malleable enough to reshape ourselves in the face of change without losing who we are. When life gets a little bit weird it’s the little things that can help pull us through. Maybe laying eyes on the uninterrupted smoothness of a dead calm body of water, reflecting the setting sun without a imperfection. A scene with wind so still you can close your eyes to hear nothing but your heart stir, reminding us we are alive and well. These brief cuts of serenity now steel us for the insanity later.
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February 3, 2016
Orange Asunder
Orange Asunder — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Tonight’s sky, yo. Things were on fire. Smoldering clouds, disjointed and layered, torched in a fiery orange glow. Somewhere lost in time Hephaestus hammers away at his hellforge, sparks igniting the earthly sky of our modern domain. Was this the look the bronze age sky had cast as Achilles’ shield was crafted? All I can say is high drama was the Dock Road scene as a scintillating sunset pulsed upon the marsh.
Tonight getting the shot was the simple part of the process. It was corralling the 7 brackets in post processing that was the challenge. The orange and reds were amped and it took a deal of desaturation, hue, and luminance adjustments to get things under control—lest this be blow out city. Fortunately with a few whip cracks and some deft slider work things were brought back within reason. With that I am happy to close out another productive weekend of shooting. Here’s to a great week.
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January 31, 2016
Holgate Time
Holgate Time — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Holgate, New Jersey. Long Beach Island’s southern most tip makes for some high drama in the dead of winter. Considering its south-by-southwest orientation it aligns splendidly for the southwest sunsets that render over the winter months; giving photographers options to shoot toward the southwest, or to maintain a southeastern angle to work the shore break into the frame. (As I did in the photo above.) I can’t act like Holgate was my idea. All hats be tipped—real or imagined—go to Jeff Ruemeli who called me a little after 2:00 p.m. to let me know he had it on good authority that winter storm Jonas wreaked some havoc down there, and he had heard other photographer’s lauding its praises.
While I did Instagram a cellphone photograph of one of the uncovered jetties, I went with a more conventional exposure for my main image. The undulating sand was impossible to ignore, and after a brief warm up in the car, I set to working out how best to convey the pattern. Admittedly I struggled determining the optimal height to expose the photo. I wanted to get close enough to draw the eye to the reticulated sand, but still wanted to ensure the shore break was discernible across the center of the image.
I went back and forth between posting this or a vertical orientation exposure that I made handheld from a single frame. While I compositionally prefer the other shot, because it was handheld at a somewhat sluggish 1/6 of a second shutter it just wasn’t quite as sharp as it needed to be. Certainly not sharp enough to render cleanly at a large enough size. Imperfections aside I still may post it here tomorrow as the leading lines of the photo are a real standout. We’ll see.
Big time shout out to the kite surfer battling the elements and working the shore break big time. He owned that steady wind out of the south-southeast, and was riding with noteworthy balance and endurance. He went non-stop for what must have been an hour, seldom if ever coming off his board. Yeah, and it wasn’t exactly warm out there, either. Cheers, buddy.
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January 30, 2016
Fired and Frozen
Fired and Frozen — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
I avoid vertical orientation photography, and I’m doing myself a disservice. Despite its obvious place and application in landscape photography I remain reluctant to exploit it. Unpacking my reasoning and there’s a few things at play here: 1) I dropped my camera pretty early on and its gyroscope—and thereby level—is useless, rendering level horizons a bit harder to dial in when the camera is upright; 2) my website homepage renders all images in a traditional 3:2 crop ratio (standard crop you’d get from any 35mm film camera); 3) when viewing a single post page—such as this one—from a desktop the left-justification of the photo is a little bit wonky; and 4) I’m just not comfortable making them. To confuse things further, I prefer to shoot vertically from my mobile device as opposed to landscape. Without contradictions, I am not. It was actually a photograph I shared to Instagram last night that led me to go back and process my DSLR version of Sunday night’s sunset this evening.
Yet as I walk through the reasons cited above one thing becomes immediately clear—only one of those reasons has anything to do with photography. While all four in some degree or another shed light on the pitfalls of perfectionism, two of those reasons are remnants of my past life as a web designer. To be fair it’s not entirely a past life as I do have this place to still dabble in the front end web world, if only a little. In the immediate future, however? I will make it a point to shoot vertical more often. Not only is it the lone path to improvement, it’s a key piece to the landscape photographers repertoire. I can no longer choose to sit out. In the meantime my buddy Ben excels at the technique and took a mean shot this morning. That coupled with my Instagram shot sort of set this line of thinking in motion. He also shows off several exemplar vertical images on his 2015 best of post.
In order to scratch the perfectionist itch maybe I’ll carve out some time to address my web layout issues with vertical photos. Maybe.
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January 26, 2016
A Bridge Too Far
A Bridge Too Far — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
There would be weather they said. Follow the global models they said. Disregard the NAM they said. The heaviest bands will never push north they said. Well here we are one day after the Blizzard of 2016, and I’m sure many a backs are barking from a long day of digging out after wondering, dude, where’s my car? This was one for the record books, folks, and even though the biggest snows happened just a few miles to my north and to my west, the coast sure saw a battering at the hands of a fired up Atlantic Ocean. After spending the better of the weekend weathering the storm with friends, fretting over rain/snow lines only to later find myself and swan diving into snow after the changeover, my buddy and I finally made it out for some real deal photo making this evening.
After much hemming and hawing over where to shoot, most of which happened during a pitiful attempt to clear out my driveway, an unsolicited query from family friends on Dock Road asking my Mother if I was out shooting said road solidified the final destination. Understanding the marsh isthmus no doubt took a serious tidal beating, we didn’t exactly know what we were in for at the Road of Dock.
The scene upon arrival was otherworldly. Elevated sea levels and ice flows littering the marsh dominated the landscape. While the tide was mostly down at this point, its frozen remnants were not hard to parse out. The vestiges of a foul tempered nor’easter were visible horizon to horizon, and before long the power of the wind was clearly on display. No less than four telephone poles were down, with power lines sidewinding the single road for what must have been a mile. Yes the scene was surreal but that was quickly supplanted with the sobering reality that real humans live amidst this battered place of wonderment, and here they are tasked with wintering it out sans power in the wake of a powerful winter storm—one that will most certainly be regaled as historic in the pantheon of east coast storms.
While my picture making was at a minimum this weekend, yet this photograph marks my first documentation of New Jersey in a post Winter Storm Jonas world. Here’s hoping you fared as well as possible during this powerful weather system, and were able to make the most of your time indoors. Cheers.
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January 24, 2016